UTAH COUNTY — Being behind the wheel of their patrol car is 90 percent of a police officer’s job, but have you ever wondered how officers train to handle high speeds and tense maneuvers?
At a hidden training course in Utah County, Salt Lake City Police Department recruits filled up their tanks and their tires Friday for a day of speed and agility training.
“Today we're here on the EVO course — it stands for emergency vehicle operations,” said Jay Fuhr, one of the SLCPD recruits. "So we're just learning how to safely operate a vehicle — that's 90% of our job as police officers.”
Fuhr is one of the recruits going through the training to learn how to control cars in stressful situations.
From mock pursuits, tight maneuvering, fast speeds, hit points, and high-speed turns, they cover it all over a full week of the SLCPD police academy.
“My dad's a police officer, my older brother's a police officer, so it kind of runs in the family,” Fuhr told FOX 13 News, adding that while it's tough, his fellow recruits are helping each other.
“The brotherhood or sisterhood, just the family aspect of police is one of the reasons why I joined," he said. "You know, my class... They're my best friends. I'll consider them family at this point.”
Officer Eric Kirkman, who oversees the training, watched these young potential officers on Friday.
“This week, we'll spend at least 40 hours out here where they are driving these cars, the whole time in different situations, and a lot of them struggle. It's a very stressful time for them,” Kirkman said. “As a police officer, you spend, you know, if you work a 10-hour shift, you spend probably seven, eight hours of those of that day in your car driving around.”
While getting somewhere fast can mean catching someone who is doing wrong, more importantly, officers need to keep themselves and others around them safe while doing so.
“A lot of our calls are going to be someone that just needs help, and we have to get there in a safe manner," Fuhr said. "We all want to be police officers because we want to serve and protect the community.”
“We're not driving fast just because we can drive fast. That's not the case," Kirkman added. "We've got to get there as fast as we can so we can help those people.”
